Local color crescendo

Tri-Lakes rated at peak colors for three-day weekend

October 4, 2012

The bottom line is that the fall foliage is brilliant right now and will remain that way through this weekend - a long one for many due to Columbus Day and Canadian Thanksgiving.

But there's room to quibble over whether local leaves are at their peak fall colors or just past peak. Did recent rainfall knock enough of them off their branches to make them slightly less colorful than last weekend?

That partly depends on where in the Adirondacks you are. The I Love New York Fall Foliage Report, released Wednesday, has the central Adirondacks at being past peak with much of the rest of the Park being at peak, including in and around Lake Placid, Keene and Keene Valley.

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Autumn’s colors and moss-covered rocks are mirrored in this small, still pond in a wooded area near the Saranac River in Saranac Lake Wednesday.(Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

A great blue heron finds a perch on a dock to scan the serene waters of Moody Pond in Saranac Lake on Wednesday afternoon.(Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

(Map by I Love New York)

Observers with I Love New York said this weekend could bring "some of the most magnificent fall colors in recent memory.

"Look for amazing shades of red, along with additional hues of gold, burgundy and yellow," the report said. "In the area surrounding Whiteface Mountain, color spotters expect 75 percent color transition and peak foliage by the weekend. The reds are spectacular this year, with oranges, burgundies and all shades in between dotting the hillsides.

"The Bloomingdale area reports reds, golds, ambers and purples among their peak shades, all contrasting nicely with the evergreens."

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I Love New York foliage spotters in Saranac Lake expect 90 to 100 percent color transition by the weekend, the report said.

"The Lake Clear and Paul Smiths areas are sporting every color in the spectrum, but particularly noteworthy are the oranges and yellows of the sugar maples and the bright reds of the red maples and high bush cranberries," the report said. "Kiwassa Lake spotters note leaves of pink, gold, red, dark red, maroon, orange and yellow. Look for 95 percent color change and a brilliant display of yellow, copper, pumpkin, burgundy and shades of adobe red in the Mt. Arab/Tupper Lake area, where leaf peeping continues to be sensational."

Elsewhere in the Adirondacks, Old Forge leaf peepers report nearly 100 percent leaf transition, although foliage is slightly past peak. Peak conditions are also predicted in places like Pitcairn and Piercefield in St. Lawrence County.

Colors are near peak for most of the rest of the North Country but only just starting to turn in the warmer Champlain Valley.

"In the Lake Champlain area of the Adirondacks the color transition is still in the early stages and will be between 20 and 30 percent by the weekend," the report said. "Look for great shades of apple-red and pumpkin-orange."

The rest of New York is looking colorful, too. Peak colors "are spreading from the Adirondacks to the Catskills, the Chautauqua-Allegheny and Central New York regions, with near-peak and midpoint color in many other areas," according to the report.